Inbound email provider suggestions

[r-a-y]

Spawned from changes due to Mandrill's pricing structure, I'm going to compile a list of potential inbound providers for inclusion into RBE.

Implemented:

(Information partially updated as of January 2019. If you find inaccuracies, please let me know.)

• SparkPost - One-month trial - first 15,000 emails free; afterwards, switches to 500 emails per month free. (Added as of commit 4d9c4ad)
  • Docs: https://support.sparkpost.com/customer/portal/articles/2039614-enabling-inbound-email-relaying-relay-webhooks
  • No UI dashboard for inbound activity.
  • Has webhook token authentication on par with Mandrill.
  • Needs three MX records for subdomain.
  • Inbound processing doesn't appear to count towards email total, so a free account should be sufficient.
  • Sends processed emails to webhook in batches similar to Mandrill.
• Postmark - First 100 emails per month free on developer plan. (Added as of commit 12f2782)
  • Docs: http://developer.postmarkapp.com/developer-process-parse.html
  • Has UI dashboard for inbound activity. Only shows last 30 days of activity though. Logs email content as well.
  • Can blacklist email addresses from inbound processing in UI dashboard.
  • Needs one MX record for subdomain.
  • Inbound processing counts towards email total.
  • Sends processed emails to webhook one at a time.
• SendGrid - One-month trial - first 40,000 emails free; afterwards, switches to 100 emails per day free. (Added as of commit 1185b93)
  • Docs: https://sendgrid.com/docs/API_Reference/Parse_Webhook/inbound_email.html
  • Has UI dashboard for inbound activity. Only logs email address and time processed though. Only shows last 3 days of activity. (Pro accounts get 30 days of activity.)
  • Needs one MX record for subdomain.
  • Inbound processing doesn't appear to count towards email total, so a free account should be sufficient.
  • Sends processed emails to webhook one at a time.

Maybe later:

(This section is outdated.)

• ElasticEmail - First 150,000 emails per month free.
  • Docs: http://elasticemail.com/api-documentation/inbound-notification
  • No unique headers or server properties to identify if the inbound POST response was from ElasticEmail. (Might move to "Declined" because of this.)
  • Needs one MX record for subdomain.
  • Inbound processing counts toward email total.
  • Sends processed emails to webhook one at a time.
• Mailgun - First 10,000 emails per month free.
  • Docs: https://documentation.mailgun.com/quickstart-receiving.html#add-receiving-mx-records
  • TODO: Check if inbound processing counts toward email total; check if UI dashboard logs inbound emails.
  • Needs two MX records for subdomain
  • Sends processed emails to webhook one at a time.
• Tipimail - First 10,000 emails per month free / 1000 per day.
  • Docs: https://docs.tipimail.com/en/guide/settings/domains/
  • TODO: Check if inbound processing counts toward email total; check if processed emails are sent one-at-a-time or in batches
  • Has UI dashboard for inbound activity.
• Mailjet - First 6000 emails per month free / 200 per day.
  • Docs: https://dev.mailjet.com/guides/#parse-api-inbound-emails
  • TODO: Check if inbound processing counts toward email total; check if UI dashboard logs inbound emails; check if processed emails are sent one-at-a-time or in batches
  • Needs one MX record for subdomain; requires domain verification - https://dev.mailjet.com/guides/#use-your-own-domain
• Socketlabs - First 2000 emails per month free.
  • Docs: https://support.socketlabs.com/index.php/Knowledgebase/Article/View/111/
  • TODO: Check if UI dashboard logs inbound emails; check if processed emails are sent one-at-a-time or in batches
  • Has webhook token authentication.
  • Needs one MX record for subdomain.
  • Inbound processing counts towards email total.

Declined:

• Amazon SES - First 1000 received emails per month free. Need to verify pricing for inbound email.
  • Docs:
  • https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-receive-and-process-incoming-email-with-amazon-ses/
  • http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/receiving-email.html
  • Requires domain verification - http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/verify-domain-procedure.html

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Info gathered by me; providers sourced from:

• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11170713
• http://socialcompare.com/en/comparison/transactional-emailing-providers-mailjet-sendgrid-critsend

[StrothiP]

Hey guys,

@r-a-y I was wondering, whether this plugin is still under development and if so, maybe Mailersend could be integrated as an option? They offer 12000 emails / month free of charge, which is a great offer for small NGOs like mine. Plus they have inbound routing, so I think they could be integrated with your plugin? See here: https://www.mailersend.com/features/inbound-emails

Let me know what you think :)

Kind regards, Philip

[r-a-y]

Sorry for the late reply, @StrothiP.

Plugin is still in development, but mostly for bug fixes. As of right now, I do not plan on integrating Mailersend into the plugin.

If you have access to a developer, that person will need to create a new class to parse the inbound provider's POST response to your website. View examples of other inbound provider classes: https://github.com/r-a-y/bp-reply-by-email/tree/master/includes/classes/ (check the PHP files prefixed with bp-reply-by-email-inbound-provider.

The developer should also register their provider with this filter: https://github.com/r-a-y/bp-reply-by-email/blob/18e720b1cf2969d798dafb2a20a048e768c4a06d/bp-rbe-core.php#L214-L215

Add a new array key with the provider short name and for the array value, add the class name for your inbound provider class. You can also load your inbound provider class on this filter as well.

For example:

function mailersend_rbe_inbound_provider( $retval ) {
    require_once FILEPATH-TO-YOUR-CUSTOM-PROVIDER-CLASS.php;

    $retval['mailersend'] = 'CLASSNAME_OF_YOUR_CUSTOM_PROVIDER_CLASS';
    return $retval;
}
add_filter( 'bp_rbe_register_inbound_providers', 'mailersend_rbe_inbound_provider' );